AES Indiana has served Central Indiana for more than 100 years. Our mission has always been to improve lives by delivering safe, reliable and cost-effective energy solutions to the people and businesses who depend on us every day. That hasn’t changed. But how we fulfill our mission must continue evolving to meet the demands of a growing region and a dynamic energy landscape.
In the past few months, there have been broader conversations about large-scale developments like data centers and the energy they consume. These proposed projects could support a larger economic development strategy that fosters growth and modernization of our electric infrastructure. Data centers are in no way associated with our current rate review request filed with the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
In fact, we’ve developed a strategy that shows no negative impact to existing customer rates should AES Indiana power data centers in the future. This is possible because, even though more investments are required to serve those customers, we will be able to spread our costs over a larger amount of electricity sold.
This information was validated in our most recent Integrated Resource Planning (IRP) public stakeholder meeting. The IRP supports economic decision making and is a critical process for AES Indiana to gather input and analyze the future of our generation resources so we can continue our mission to serve Central Indiana.
The IRP models the cost of new generation resources, changes in fuel, power purchased in the market, and operating and maintenance costs for existing assets and analyzes how these factors could impact our overall costs. This process ensures AES Indiana identifies the best option that meets our customers’ needs in a way that is safe, reliable and cost-effective. AES Indiana is planning on completing its IRP at the end of October.
We understand customers have questions about data centers. If data center agreements progress, we have an obligation to serve existing customers while being transparent with our plans to serve new customers. This will also include following the regulatory framework
that requires AES Indiana to go through a public review process to make the investments to serve the data centers and review the rates these data center customers will be charged.
Our job at AES Indiana is to deliver electricity to people and places that make our community prosper. We responsibly manage what is within our control, and we are committed to working with city and state leaders on a long-term vision for a stronger, more resilient energy future.
Brandi Davis-Handy is the president of AES Indiana.
